#1

Marc, First off. Great web site!!!

I kind of, sort of remember you. I left in Apr-76. At the time Mark Dennis was my Flight Chief. I was also in 5192. We had the last room on the side that was facing the hill and the softball fields.
The Handlers: Myself(Jim Jablonski), Dave Bajorek, Dan Harlacker, John Papastathis. We arrived in Oct-74 as 811 Security. We worked Security for a couple months and then a need for handlers was posted. We applied and went to Kadena to train.

Acts of bravery were not only on duty. When we first arrived in Oct-74 at every SP training briefing we went to all we heard about was how these 2 K-9 troops, while off duty had pulled a couple of P.I. nationals out of a burning Jeepney while downtown. The 2 troops were Rich Hatt(better known as just Hatt) and G.G. Gould. They both recieved the Airmans Medal for their act of heroism. At the time and maybe still is, this was the highest award given to enlisted personnel during peacetime. This happened in the summer of 1974 I believe.
In May 75, I forget which base, in Korea, they had there own version of Black Friday. They relieved a lot of handlers from duty and Clark sent a whole bunch of K-9 troops TDY to fill in.
I was in the States on Emergency leave at the time and did not get to go. We were a skeleton crew at Clark when I returned though.

The evacuation of Saigon in the summer of 1975. K-9 NCO's along with NCO's from RP, SP's Etc. flew armed support missions in the C-5's that were landing and taking off constantly.

I have been thinking about the PI a lot since this is our 25th anniversary and finding this web site was a godsend. My favorite posts were the Golf Course (had shelter in the rain and cold running water when thirsty.) and POL. I loved exploring the hill and taking new troops up there on one of those beautiful starry PI nights.
I handled several dog's but Ace was my favorite. Big, Bad and Black made those teeth look huge. He came back from Kadena with us.
When I talk to my kids about the Cliche " It's not the size of the dog in the fight it's the size of the fight in the dog" I tell them about Thor. Thor barely made the minimum requirement's to be a K-9 dog. Just over 65 pounds but I hated catching him. Would not stay on the wrap. Make the first bite on the wrap and then try for something else. Vicious. Feel free to use this e-mail in any way you like.
Misery is expecting a Base Sweep team and ending up at Circle Ant!

Thanks for the memories.

Jim Jablonski PI Oct74/Apr76